


Life's Endless Pain

by Ludholtzjj



Series: The Wizarding World of Game of Thrones [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV), Jonsa - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Angst, Dicksa baby, Drama, F/M, Gryffindor, Jealous Jon Snow, Love, My payback against Season 7 Jon Snow, Original Character(s), Out of Character, POV Original Character, Ravenclaw, Sansa Stark is an only child, Season 7 Jon Snow pissed off the wrong person, Slytherin, Unrequited Love, dicksa, jonsa, minor Jonerys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-05 02:14:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12180933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ludholtzjj/pseuds/Ludholtzjj
Summary: "If they ask you about me, tell them: she was the only person that loved me with honesty, and I broke her." - Unknown(Excuse my shit summary/quote, I couldn't think of anything)





	Life's Endless Pain

**Author's Note:**

> IMPORTANT: I do not technically own this fic, or well most of it anyway lol; because most of it is direct dialogue from the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows book and the occasional line from the movie Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. My point wasn't to write a Harry Potter fic per say, it was to put the Jonsa relationship into a part of the Harry Potter series... mostly because I love this moment but also because Season 7 Jon pissed me the fuck off and I thought I'd get that little bitch back for it. 
> 
> Anyway while you read this fic I recommend you listen to "Dumbledore's Farewell" from the Harry Potter soundtrack :)  
> link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLnqd707Fnw
> 
> Also let me know if you find any mistakes, I read through it but I miss some shit sometimes!
> 
> Characters:  
> Snape = Jon Snow  
> Lily Potter = Sansa Stark (Tarly)  
> Dumbledore = Davos Seaworth  
> James Potter = Dickon Tarly  
> Sirius = Harry Hardyng  
> Harry Potter = Ned (Eddard) Tarly  
> Ron = (Little) Sam  
> Lucius Malfoy = Jaime Lannister  
> Malfoy = Joffrey

"You need to find out where the Night King is, because he'll have the ice spider with him, won't he? Do it, Ned look inside him!"

Why was it so easy? Because his scar had been burning for hours, yearning to show him the Night King's thoughts? He closed his eyes on Sam’s command, and at once, the screams and bangs and all the discordant sounds of the battle were drowned until they became distant, as though he stood far, far away from them… 

He was standing in the middle of a desolate but strangely familiar room, with peeling paper on the walls and all the windows boarded up except for one. The sounds of the assault on the castle were muffled and distant. The single unblocked window revealed distant bursts of light where the castle stood, but inside the room was dark except for a solitary oil lamp.

He was rolling his wand between his fingers, watching it, his thoughts on the room in the castle, the secret room only he had ever found, the room, like the chamber, that you had to be clever and cunning and inquisitive to discover...He was confident that the boy would not find the diadem...although Davos' puppet had come much farther than he ever expected… too far… 

"My King," said a voice, desperate and cracked. He turned: there was Jaime Lannister sitting in the darkest corner, ragged and still bearing the marks of the punishment he had received after the boy's last escape. One of his eyes remained closed and puffy. "My King… please… my son… "

"If your son is dead, Jaime, it is not my fault. He did not come and join me, like the rest of the Slytherins. Perhaps he has decided to befriend Ned Tarly?"

"No never," whispered Jaime. 

"You must hope not."

"Aren't… aren't you afraid, my King that Tarly might die at another hand but yours?" asked Jaime, his voice shaking. "Wouldn't it be… forgive me… more prudent to call off this battle, enter the castle, and seek him y-yourself?"

"Do not pretend Jaime. You wish the battle to cease so that you can discover what has happened to your son. And I do not need to seek Tarly. Before the night is out, Tarly will have come to find me."

The Night King dropped his gaze once more to the wand in his fingers. It troubled him...and those things that troubled the Night King needed to be rearranged..."Go and fetch Snow."

"Snow, m-my King?"

"Snow. Now. I need him. There is a service I require from him. Go."

Frightened, stumbling a little through the gloom, Jaime left the room. The Night King continued to stand there, twirling the wand between his fingers, staring at it.

"It is the only way, Nagini," he whispered, and he looked around, and there was the great ice spider, now suspended in mid-air, twisting gracefully within the enchanted, protected space he had made for her, a starry, transparent sphere somewhere between a glittering cage and a tank.

With a gasp, Ned pulled back and opened his eyes at the same moment his ears were assaulted with the screeches and cries, the smashes and bangs of battle.

"He's in the Shrieking Shack. The ice spider's with him, it's got some sort of magical protection around it. He's just sent Jaime Lannister to find Snow."

"The Night King's sitting in the shrieking Shack?" said Sam, outraged. "He's not even fighting?"

"He doesn't think he needs to fight," said Ned. "He thinks I'm going to go to him."

"But why?"

"He knows I'm after Horcruxes, he's keeping Nagini close beside him obviously I'm going to have to go to him to get near the thing".

* * *

 

"The Cloak!" he whispered. "Put the Cloak on!"

He groped behind him and Sam forced the bundle of slippery cloth into his free hand. With difficulty he dragged it over himself, murmured "Nox", extinguishing his wand light, and continued on his hands and knees, as silently as possible, all his senses straining, expecting every second to be discovered, to hear a cold scratchy voice, see a flash of green light.

And then he heard voices coming from the room directly ahead of them, only slightly muffled by the fact that the opening at the end of the tunnel had been blocked up by what looked like an old crate. Hardly daring to breathe, Ned edged right up to the opening and peered through a tiny gap left between crate and wall.

The room beyond was dimly lit, but he could see Nagini, safe in her enchanted, starry sphere, which floated unsupported in mid-air. He could see the edge of a table, and a long-fingered ice blue hand toying with a wand.

Then Snow spoke, and Ned's heart lurched: Snow was inches away from where he crouched, hidden.

"...my King, their resistance is crumbling"

"And it is doing so without your help," said the Night King in his high, scratchy voice. "Skilled wizard though you are, Jon, I do not think you will make much difference now. We are almost there...almost."

"Let me find the boy. Let me bring you Tarly. I know I can find him, my King. Please."

Snow strode past the gap, and Ned drew back a little, keeping his eyes fixed upon Nagini, wondering whether there was any spell that might penetrate the protection surrounding her, but he could not think of anything. One failed attempt, and he would give away his position...

The Night King stood up. Ned could see him now, see the blue eyes and the flattened, serpentine face in the semi-darkness.

"I have a problem, Jon," said the Night King softly.

"My King?" said Snow.

The Night King raised the Elder Wand, holding it as delicately and precisely as a conductor's baton.

"Why doesn't it work for me, Jon?"

In the silence Ned imagined he could hear the ice spider hissing slightly or was it the Night King's sibilant sigh lingering on the air?

"My King?" said Snow blankly. "I do not understand. You have performed extraordinary magic with that wand."

"No", said the Night King. "I have performed my usual magic. I am extraordinary, but this wand… no. It has not revealed the wonders it has promised. I feel no difference between this wand and the one I procured from Tobho Mott all those years ago."

The Night King's tone was musing, calm, but Ned's scar had begun to throb and pulse: Pain was building in his forehead, and he could feel that controlled sense of fury building inside the Night King.

"No difference", said the Night King again.

Snow did not speak. Ned could not see his face. He wondered whether Snow sensed danger, and was trying to find the right words to reassure his master.

The Night King started to move around the room: Ned lost sight of him for a few seconds as he prowled, speaking in that same measured voice, while the pain and fury mounted in Ned.

"I have thought long and hard, Jon… do you know why I have called you back from battle?"

And for a moment Ned saw Snow's profile. His eyes were fixed upon the ice spider in its enchanted cage.

"No, my King, but I beg you will let me return. Let me find Tarly."

"You sound like Jaime. Neither of you understands Tarly as I do. He does not need finding. Tarly will come to me. I know his weakness you see, his one great flaw. He will hate watching the others struck down around him, knowing that it is for him that it happens. He will want to stop it at any cost. He will come."

"But my King, he might be killed accidentally by someone other than yourself"

"My instructions to the wights have been perfectly clear. Capture Tarly. Kill his friends. The more, the better but do not kill him."

"But it is of you that I wished to speak, Jon, not Ned Tarly. You have been very valuable to me. Very valuable."

"My King knows I seek only to serve him. But let me go and find the boy, my King. Let me bring him to you. I know I can"

"I have told you, no!" said the Night King, and Ned caught the glint of blue in his eyes as he turned again, and the swishing of his cloak was like the slithering of a snake, and he felt the Night King's impatience in his burning scar. "My concern at the moment, Jon, is what will happen when I finally meet the boy!"

"My King, there can be no question, surely?"

"but there is a question, Jon. There is."

The Night King halted, and Ned could see him plainly again as he slid the Elder Wand through his blue fingers, staring at Snow.

"Why did both the wands I have used fail when directed at Ned Tarly?"

"I cannot answer that, my King."

"Can't you?"

The stab of rage felt like a spike driven through Ned's head: he forced his own fist into his mouth to stop himself from crying out in pain. He closed his eyes, and suddenly he was the Night King, looking into Snow's face.

"My wand of new did everything of which I asked it, Jon, except to kill Ned Tarly. Twice it failed. Tobho Mott told me under torture of the twin cores, told me to take another's wand. I did so, but Jaime's wand shattered upon meeting Snow's."

"I have no explanation, my King."

Snow was not looking at the Night King now. His dark eyes were still fixed upon the ice spider in its protective sphere.

"I sought a third wand, Jon. the Elder Wand, the Wand of Destiny, the Deathstick. I took it from its previous master. I took it from the grave of Davos Seaworth."

And now Snow looked at the Night King, and Snow's face was like a death mask. It was marble white and so still that when he spoke, it was a shock to see that anyone lived behind the blank eyes.

"My King, let me go to the boy "

"All this long night when I am on the brink of victory, I have sat here," said the Night King, his voice barely louder than a whisper, "wondering, why the Elder Wand refuses to be what it ought to be, refuses to perform as legend says it must perform for its rightful owner...and I think I have the answer."

Snow did not speak.

"Perhaps you already know it? You are a clever man, after all, Jon. You have been a good and faithful servant, and I regret what must happen."

"My King?"

"The Elder Wand cannot serve me properly, Jon, because I am not its true master. The Elder Wand belongs to the wizard who killed its last owner. You killed Davos Seaworth. While you live, Jon, the Elder Wand cannot truly be mine."

"My King!" Snow protested, raising his wand.

"It cannot be any other way," said the Night King. "I must master the wand, Jon. Master the wand, and I master Tarly at last."

And the Night King swiped the air with the Elder Wand. It did nothing to Snow, who for a split second seemed to think he had been reprieved: but then the Night King's intention became clear. The ice spider's cage was rolling through the air, and before Snow could do anything more than yell, the Night King spoke… 

"Kill."

There was a terrible scream. Ned saw Snow's face losing the little color it had left; his brown eyes widened, as the ice spider pierced his neck, his knees gave way and he fell to the floor.

"I regret it," said the Night King coldly.

He turned away; there was no sadness in him, no remorse. It was time to leave this shack and take charge, with a wand that would now do his full bidding. He pointed it at the starry cage holding the ice spider, which drifted upward off Snow, who fell sideways onto the floor, blood gushing from the wound in his neck. The Night King swept from the room without a backward glance, and the great ice spider floated after him in its huge protective sphere.

Back in the tunnel and his own mind, Ned opened his eyes; He had drawn blood biting down on his knuckles in an effort not to shout out. Now he was looking through the tiny crack between crate and wall, watching a foot in a black boot trembling on the floor.

"Ned!" breathed Sam behind him, but he had already pointed his wand at the crate blocking his view. It lifted an inch into the air and drifted sideways silently. As quietly as he could, he pulled himself up into the room.

He did not know why he was doing it, why he was approaching the dying man: he did not know what he felt as he saw Snow's white face, and the fingers trying to staunch the bloody wound at his neck. Ned took off the invisibility cloak and looked down upon the man he hated, whose widening brown eyes found Ned as he tried to speak. Ned bent over him, and Snow seized the front of his robes and pulled him close.

A terrible rasping, gurgling noise issued from Snow's throat.

"Take...it..."

Something more than blood was leaking from Snow. Silvery blue, neither gas nor liquid, it gushed from his mouth and his ears and his eyes, and Ned knew what it was, but did not know what to do. A flask, conjured from thin air, was thrust into his shaking hand by Sam. Ned lifted the silvery substance into it with his wand. When the flask was full to the brim, and Snow looked as though there was no blood left in him, his grip on Ned's robes slackened.

"Look...at....me..." he whispered.

The Tully blue eyes found the brown, “You… have… your… mother’s… eyes”

After a second, something in the depths of the dark pair seemed to vanish, leaving them fixed, blank, and empty. The hand holding Ned’s thudded to the floor, and Snow moved no more.

* * *

 

The castle was completely empty; even the ghosts seemed to have joined the mass mourning in the Great Hall. Ned ran without stopping, clutching the crystal flask of Snow's last thoughts, and he did not slow down until he reached the stone gargoyle guarding the headmaster's office.

"Password?"

"Davos!" said Ned without thinking, because it was he whom he yearned to see, and to his surprise the gargoyle slid aside revealing the spiral staircase behind.

But when Ned burst into the circular office he found a change. The portraits that hung all around the walls were empty. Not a single headmaster or headmistress remained to see him; all, it seemed, had flitted away, charging through the paintings that lined the castle so that they could have a clear view of what was going on.

Ned glanced hopelessly at Davos' deserted frame, which hung directly behind the headmaster's chair, then turned his back on it. The stone Pensieve lay in the cabinet where it had always been. Ned heaved it onto the desk and poured Snow's memories into the wide basin with its runic markings around the edge. To escape into someone else's head would be a blessed relief... Nothing that even Snow had left him could be worse than his own thoughts. The memories swirled, silver white and strange, and without hesitating, with a feeling of reckless abandonment, as though this would assuage his torturing grief, Ned dived.

He fell headlong into sunlight, and his feet found warm ground. When he straightened up, he saw that he was in a nearly deserted playground. A single huge chimney dominated the distant skyline. Two girls were swinging backward and forward, and a lean boy was watching them from behind a clump of bushes. His dark brown curly hair was overlong and his clothes were so mismatched that it looked deliberate: too short jeans, a shabby, overlarge coat that might have belonged to a grown man, an odd smock like shirt.

Ned moved closer to the boy. Snow looked no more than nine or ten years old, broody, long faced, and lean. There was undisguised greed in his long face as he watched the younger of the two girls swinging higher and higher than her friend.

"Sansa, don't do it!" shrieked the elder of the two.

But the girl had let go of the swing at the very height of its arc and flown into the air, quite literally flown, launched herself skyward with a great shout of laughter, and instead of crumpling on the playground asphalt, she soared like a trapeze artist through the air, staying up far too long, landing far too lightly.

"Mrs. Stark told you not to!"

Jeyne stopped her swing by dragging the heels of her sandals on the ground, making a crunching, grinding sound, then leapt up, hands on hips.

" Your mum said you weren't allowed, Sansa!"

"But I'm fine," said Sansa, still giggling. "Jeyne, look at this. Watch what I can do."

Jeyne glanced around. The playground was deserted apart from themselves and, though the girls did not know it, Snow. Sansa had picked up a fallen flower from the bush behind which Snow lurked. Jeyne advanced, evidently torn between curiosity and disapproval. Sansa waited until Jeyne was near enough to have a clear view, then held out her palm. The flower sat there, opening and closing its petals, like some bizarre, many-lipped oyster.

"Stop it!" shrieked Jeyne.

"It's not hurting you," said Sansa, but she closed her hand on the blossom and threw it back to the ground.

"It's not right," said Jeyne, but her eyes had followed the flower's flight to the ground and lingered upon it. "How do you do it?" she added, and there was definite longing in her voice.

"It's obvious, isn't it?" Snow could no longer contain himself, but had jumped out from behind the bushes. Jeyne shrieked and ran backward toward the swings, but Sansa, though clearly startled, remained where she was. Snow seemed to regret his appearance. A dull flush of color mounted on his cheeks as he looked at Sansa.

"What's obvious?" asked Sansa.

Snow had an air of nervous excitement. With a glance at the distant Jeyne, now hovering beside the swings, he lowered his voice and said, "I know what you are."

"What do you mean?"

"You're...you're a witch," whispered Snow.

She looked affronted.

"That's not a very nice thing to say to somebody!"

She turned, nose in the air, and marched off toward her friend.

"No!" said Snow. He was highly colored now, and Ned wondered why he did not take off the ridiculously large coat, unless it was because he did not want to reveal the smock beneath it. He flapped after the girls, looking ludicrously bat like, like his older self.

The girls considered him, united in disapproval, both holding on to one of the swing poles, as though it was the safe place in tag.

"You are," said Snow to Sansa. "You are a witch. I've been watching you for a while. But there's nothing wrong with that. My mum's one, and I'm a wizard."

Jeyne's laugh was like cold water.

"Wizard!" she shrieked, her courage returned now that she had recovered from the shock of his unexpected appearance. "I know who you are. You're that Snow boy! They live down Spinner's End by the river," she told Sansa, and it was evident from her tone that she considered the address a poor recommendation. "Why have you been spying on us?"

"Haven't been spying," said Snow, hot and uncomfortable and dirty-haired in the bright sunlight. "Wouldn't spy on you, anyway," he added spitefully, "you're a Muggle."

Though Jeyne evidently did not understand the word, she could hardly mistake the tone.

"Sansa, come on, we're leaving!" she said shrilly. Sansa obeyed her friend at once, glaring at Snow as she left. He stood watching them as they marched through the playground gate, and Ned, the only one left to observe him, recognized Snow's bitter disappointment, and understood that Snow had been planning this moment for a while, and that it had all gone wrong...

The scene dissolved, and before Ned knew it, re-formed around him. He was now in a small thicket of trees. He could see a sunlit river glittering through their trunks. The shadows cast by the trees made a basin of cool green shade. Two children sat facing each other, cross-legged on the ground. Snow had removed his coat now; his odd smock looked less peculiar in the half light.

"...and the Ministry can punish you if you do magic outside school, you get letters."

"But I have done magic outside school!"

"We're all right. We haven't got wands yet. They let you off when you're a kid and you can't help it. But once you're eleven," he nodded importantly, "and they start training you, then you've got to go careful."

There was a little silence. Sansa had picked up a fallen twig and twirled it in the air, and Ned knew that she was imagining sparks trailing from it. Then she dropped the twig, leaned in toward the boy, and said, "It is real, isn't it? It's not a joke? Jeyne says you're lying to me. Jeyne says there isn't a Hogwarts. It is real, isn't it?"

"It's real for us," said Snow. "Not for her. But we'll get the letter, you and me."

"Really?" whispered Sansa.

"Definitely," said Snow, and even with his poorly cut hair and his odd clothes, he struck an oddly impressive figure sprawled in front of her, brimful of confidence in his destiny.

"And will it really come by owl?" Sansa whispered.

"Normally," said Snow. "But you're Muggle-born, so someone from the school will have to come and explain to your parents."

"Does it make a difference, being Muggle-born?"

Snow hesitated. His brown eyes, eager in the greenish gloom, moved over the pale face, the bright red hair.

"No," he said. "It doesn't make any difference."

"Good," said Sansa, relaxing. It was clear that she had been worrying.

"You've got loads of magic," said Snow. "I saw that. All the time I was watching you..."

His voice trailed away; she was not listening, but had stretched out on the leafy ground and was looking up at the canopy of leaves overhead. He watched her as greedily as he had watched her in the playground.

"Jon?"

A little smile twisted Snow's mouth when she said his name.

"Yeah?"

"Tell me about the dementors again."

"What d'you want to know about them for?"

"If I use magic outside school"

"They wouldn't give you to the dementors for that! Dementors are for people who do really bad stuff. They guard the wizard prison, Azkaban. You're not going to end up in Azkaban, you're too… "

He turned red again and shredded more leaves. Then a small rustling noise behind Ned made him turn: Jeyne, hiding behind a tree, had lost her footing.

"Jeyne!" said Sansa, surprise and welcome in her voice, but Snow had jumped to his feet.

"Who's spying now?" he shouted. "What d'you want?"

Jeyne was breathless, alarmed at being caught. Ned could see her struggling for something hurtful to say.

"What is that you're wearing, anyway?" she said, pointing at Snow's chest. "Your mum's blouse?"

There was a crack. A branch over Jeyne's head had fallen. Sansa screamed. The branch caught Jeyne on the shoulder, and she staggered backward and burst into tears.

"Jeyne!"

But Jeyne was running away. Sansa rounded on Snow.

"Did you make that happen?"

"No." He looked both defiant and scared.

"You did!" She was backing away from him. "You did! You hurt her!"

"No, I didn't!"

But the lie did not convince Sansa. After one last burning look, she ran from the little thicket, off after her friend, and Snow looked miserable and confused...

And the scene re-formed. Ned looked around. He was on platform nine and three quarters, and Snow stood beside him, slightly hunched, next to a beautiful, but sad faced woman who greatly resembled him. Snow was staring at a group of four a short distance away. The two girls stood a little apart from Sansa’s parents. Sansa seemed to be pleading with her friend. Ned moved closer to listen.

"...I'm sorry, Jeyne, I'm sorry! Listen… " She caught her friend's hand and held tight to it, even though Jeyne tried to pull it away. "Maybe once I'm there… no, listen, Jeyne! Maybe once I'm there, I'll be able to go to Professor Davos and persuade him to change his mind!"

"I don't want to go!" said Jeyne, and she dragged her hand back out of her friend's grasp. "You think I want to go to some stupid castle and learn to be a..."

Her pale eyes roved over the platform, over the cats mewling in their owners' arms, over the owls, fluttering and hooting at each other in cages, over the students, some already in their long black robes, loading trunks onto the scarlet steam engine or else greeting one another with glad cries after a summer apart.

" You think I want to be a freak?"

Sansa's eyes filled with tears as Jeyne succeeded in tugging her hand away.

"I'm not a freak," said Sansa. "That's a horrible thing to say."

"That's where you're going," said Jeyne with relish. "A special school for freaks. You and that Snow boy...weirdos, that's what you two are. It's good you're being separated from normal people. It's for our safety."

Sansa glanced toward her parents, who were looking around the platform with an air of wholehearted enjoyment, drinking in the scene. Then she looked back at her friend, and her voice was low and fierce.

"You didn't think it was such a freak's school when you wrote to the headmaster and begged him to take you."

Jeyne turned scarlet.

"Beg? I didn't beg!"

"I saw his reply. It was very kind."

"You shouldn't have read it!" whispered Jeyne, "that was my private, how could you?"

Sansa gave herself away by half-glancing toward where Snow stood nearby. Jeyne gasped.

"That boy found it! You and that boy have been sneaking in my things!"

"No sneaking", now Sansa was on the defensive. "Jon saw the envelope, and he couldn't believe a Muggle could have contacted Hogwarts, that's all! He says there must be wizards working undercover in the postal service who take care of  that"

"Apparently wizards poke their noses in everywhere!" said Jeyne, now as pale as she had been flushed. "Freak!" she spat at her friend, and she flounced off to where Sansa’s parents stood...

The scene dissolved again. Snow was hurrying along the corridor of the Hogwarts Express as it clattered through the countryside. He had already changed into his school robes, had perhaps taken the first opportunity to take off his dreadful Muggle clothes. At last he stopped, outside a compartment in which a group of rowdy boys were talking. Hunched in a corner seat beside the window was Sansa, her face pressed against the windowpane.

Snow slid open the compartment door and sat down opposite Sansa. She glanced at him and then looked back out of the window. She had been crying.

"I don't want to talk to you," she said in a constricted voice.

"Why not?"

"Jeyne h-hates me. Because we saw that letter from Davos."

"So what?"

She threw him a look of deep dislike.

"So she's my friend!"

"She's only a… " He caught himself quickly; Sansa, too busy trying to wipe her eyes without being noticed, did not hear him.

"But we're going!" he said, unable to suppress the exhilaration in his voice. "This is it! We're off to Hogwarts!"

She nodded, mopping her eyes, but in spite of herself, she half smiled.

"You'd better be in Gryffindor," said Snow, encouraged that she had brightened a little.

"Gryffindor?"

One of the boys sharing the compartment, who had shown no interest at all in Sansa or Snow until that point, looked around at the word, and Ned, whose attention had been focused entirely on the two beside the window, saw his father: slight, brown-haired like Snow, but with that indefinable air of having been well-cared-for, even adored, that Snow so conspicuously lacked.

"Who wants to be in Gryffindor? I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?" Dickon asked the boy lounging on the seats opposite him, and with a jolt, Ned realized that it was Harry. Harry did not smile.

"My whole family has been in Gryffindor," he said.

"Blimey," said Dickon, "and I thought you seemed alright!"

Harry grinned.

"Maybe I'll break the tradition. Where are you heading, if you've got the choice?"

"'Ravenclaw, where dwell the intelligent!' Like my dad."

Snow made a small, disparaging noise. Dickon turned on him.

"Got a problem with that?"

"No," said Snow, though his slight sneer said otherwise. "If you'd rather be brainy than brawny"

"Where're you hoping to go, seeing as you're neither?" interjected Harry.

Dickon roared with laughter. Sansa sat up, rather flushed, and looked from Dickon to Harry in dislike.

"Come on, Jon, let's find another compartment."

"Oooooo..."

Dickon and Harry imitated her lofty voice; Dickon tried to trip Snow as he passed.

"See ya, bastard!" a voice called, as the compartment door slammed...

And the scene dissolved once more...

Ned was standing right behind Snow as they faced the candlelit House tables, lined with rapt faces. Then Professor Brienne said, "Sansa Stark!"

He watched his mother walk forward on trembling legs and sit down upon the rickety stool. Professor Brienne dropped the Sorting Hat onto her head, and barely a second after it had touched the bright red hair, the hat cried, "Ravenclaw!"

Ned heard Snow let out a tiny groan. Sansa took off the hat, handed it back to Professor Brienne, then hurried toward the cheering Ravenclaws, but as she went she glanced back at Snow, and there was a sad little smile on her face. Ned saw Harry move up the bench to make room for her. She took one look at him, seemed to recognize him from the train, folded her arms, and firmly turned her back on him.

The roll call continued. Ned watched Willas, Margaery, and his father join Sansa and Harry at the Ravenclaw table. At last, when only a dozen students remained to be sorted, Professor Brienne called Snow.

Ned walked with him to the stool, watched him place the hat upon his head. "Gryffindor!" cried the Sorting Hat.

And Jon Snow moved off to the other side of the Hall, away from Sansa, to where the Gryffindors were cheering him, to where Jaime Lannister, a prefect badge gleaming upon his chest, patted Snow on the back as he sat down beside him...

And the scene changed...

Sansa and Snow were walking across the castle courtyard, evidently arguing. Ned hurried to catch up with them, to listen in. As he reached them, he realized how much taller they both were. A few years seemed to have passed since their Sorting.

"...thought we were supposed to be friends?" Snow was saying, "Best friends?"

"We are, Jon, but I don't like some of the people you're hanging round with! I'm sorry, but I detest Daenerys! Daenerys! What do you see in her, Jon, she's creepy! D'you know what she tried to do to Jorah Mormont the other day?"

Sansa had reached a pillar and leaned against it, looking up into the long face.

"That was nothing," said Snow. "It was a laugh, that's all"

"It was Dark Magic, and if you think that's funny… "

"What about the stuff Tarly and his mates get up to?" demanded Snow. His color rose again as he said it, unable, it seemed, to hold in his resentment.

"What's Tarly got to do with anything?" said Sansa.

"They sneak out at night. There's something weird about that Willas. Where does he keep going?"

"He's ill," said Sansa. "They say he's ill"

"Every month at the full moon?" said Snow.

"I know your theory," said Sansa, and she sounded cold. "Why are you so obsessed with them anyway? Why do you care what they're doing at night?"

"I'm just trying to show you they're not as wonderful as everyone seems to think they are."

The intensity of his gaze made her blush.

"They don't use Dark Magic, though." She dropped her voice. "And you're being really ungrateful. I heard what happened the other night. You went sneaking down that tunnel by the Whomping Willow, and Dickon Tarly saved you from whatever's down there"

Snow's whole face contorted and he spluttered, "Saved? Saved? You think he was playing the hero? He was saving his neck and his friends' too! You're not going to hang around them, I won't let you"

"Let me? Let me?"

Sansa's bright Tully blue eyes were slits. Snow backtracked at once.

"I didn't mean… I just don't want to see you made a fool of. He fancies you, Dickon Tarly fancies you!" The words seemed wrenched from him against his will. "And he's not...everyone thinks...big Quidditch hero" Snow's bitterness and dislike were rendering him incoherent, and Sansa's eyebrows were traveling farther and farther up her forehead.

"I know Dickon Tarly's an arrogant cunt," she said, cutting across Snow. "I don't need you to tell me that. But Daenerys's idea of humor is just evil. Evil, Jon. I don't understand how you can be friends with her."

Ned doubted that Snow had even heard her strictures on Daenerys. The moment she had insulted Dickon Tarly, his whole body had relaxed, and as they walked away there was a new spring in Snow's step...

And the scene dissolved...

Ned watched again as Snow left the Great Hall after sitting his O.W.L. in Defense Against the Dark Arts, watched as he wandered away from the castle and strayed inadvertently close to the place beneath the beech tree where Daenerys sat. Ned watched as Sansa joined the group and went to speak to Snow. Snow sent Daenerys away as he turned back to a nervous Sansa, distantly he heard Sansa profess her love for Jon, only for him to reject her in favor of Daenerys. An argument about Daenerys ensued and Snow in his humiliation and fury, shouted the unforgivable word: "Mudblood."

The scene changed...

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not interested."

"I'm sorry!"

"Save your breath"

It was night time. Sansa, who was wearing a dressing gown, stood with her arms folded in front of the door with the bronze eagle knocker, at the entrance to Ravenclaw Tower.

"I only came out because Margaery told me you were threatening to sleep here."

"I was. I would have done. I never meant to call you Mudblood, it just-"

"Slipped out?" There was no pity in Sansa's voice. "It's too late. I've made excuses for you for years. None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. You and your precious little wight friends. You see, you don't even deny it! You don't even deny that's what you're all aiming to be! You can't wait to join You-Know-Who, can you?"

He opened his mouth, but closed it without speaking.

"I can't pretend anymore. You've chosen your way, I've chosen mine."

"No listen, I didn't mean-"

" To call me Mudblood? But Daenerys and you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Jon. Why should I be any different?"

He struggled on the verge of speech, but with a contemptuous look she turned and climbed back through the door...

The corridor dissolved, and the scene took a little longer to reform: Ned seemed to fly through shifting shapes and colors until his surroundings solidified again and he stood on a hilltop, forlorn and cold in the darkness, the wind whistling through the branches of a few leafless trees. The adult Snow was panting, turning on the spot, his wand gripped tightly in his hand, waiting for something or for someone... His fear infected Ned too, even though he knew that he could not be harmed, and he looked over his shoulder, wondering what it was that Snow was waiting for. Then a blinding, jagged jet of white light flew through the air. Ned thought of lightning, but Snow had dropped to his knees and his wand had flown out of his hand.

"Don't kill me!"

"That was not my intention."

Any sound of Davos apparating had been drowned by the sound of the wind in the branches. He stood before Snow with his robes whipping around him, and his face was illuminated from below in the light cast by his wand.

"Well, Jon? What message does the Night King have for me?"

"No… no message. I'm here on my own account!"

Snow was wringing his hands. He looked a little mad, with his straggling brown hair flying around him.

"I.. I come with a warning. No, a request… please"

Davos flicked his wand. Though leaves and branches still flew through the night air around them, silence fell on the spot where he and Snow faced each other.

"What request could a wight make of me?"

"The… the prophecy...the prediction...Trelawney..."

"Ah, yes," said Davos. "How much did you relay to the Night King?"

"Everything I heard!" said Snow. "That is why… it is for that reason he thinks it means Sansa Stark!"

"The prophecy did not refer to a woman," said Davos. "It spoke of a boy born at the end of July"

"You know what I mean! He thinks it means her son, he is going to hunt her down and kill them all"

"If she means so much to you," said Davos, "surely the Night King will spare her? Could you not ask for mercy for the mother, in exchange for the son?"

"I have… I have asked him"

"You disgust me," said Davos, and Ned had never heard so much contempt in his voice. Snow seemed to shrink a little, "You do not care then about the deaths of her husband and child? They can die, as long as you have what you want?"

Snow said nothing, but merely looked up at Davos.

"Hide them all, then," he croaked. "Keep her… them safe. Please."

"And what will you give me in return, Jon?"

"In… in return?" Snow gaped at Davos, and Ned expected him to protest, but after a long moment he said, "Anything."

The hilltop faded, and Ned stood in Davos' office, and something was making a terrible sound, like a wounded animal. Snow was slumped forward in a chair and Davos was standing over him, looking grim. After a moment or two, Snow raised his face, and he looked like a man who had lived a hundred years of misery since leaving the wild hilltop.

"I thought...you were going...to keep her...safe..."

"She and Dickon put their faith in the wrong person," said Davos. "Rather like you, Jon. Weren't you hoping that the Night King would spare her?"

Snow's breathing was shallow.

"Her boy survives," said Davos.

With a tiny jerk of the head, Snow seemed to flick off an irksome fly.

"Her son lives. He has her eyes, precisely her eyes. You remember the shape and color of Sansa Stark's eyes, I am sure?"

"DON'T!" bellowed Snow. "Gone...dead..."

"Is this remorse, Jon?"

"I wish...I wish I were dead..."

"And what use would that be to anyone?" said Davos coldly. "If you loved Sansa Stark, if you truly loved her, then your way forward is clear."

Snow seemed to peer through a haze of pain, and Davos's words appeared to take a long time to reach him.

"What… what do you mean?"

"You know how and why she died. Make sure it was not in vain. Help me protect Sansa's son."

"He does not need protection. The Night King has gone"

"The Night King will return, and Ned Tarly will be in terrible danger when he does."

There was a long pause, and slowly Snow regained control of himself, mastered his own breathing. At last he said, "Very well. Very well. But never… never tell, Davos! This must be between us! Swear it! I cannot bear...especially Tarly's son...I want your word!"

"My word, Jon, that I shall never reveal the best of you?" Davos sighed, looking down into Snow's ferocious, anguished face. "If you insist..."

The office dissolved but re-formed instantly. Snow was pacing up and down in front of Davos.

"He posses no measurable talent and his arrogance rivals even that of his father’s, and he seems to relish his fate"

"You see what you expect to see, Jon," said Davos, without raising his eyes from a copy of Transfiguration Today. "Other teachers report that the boy is modest, likable, and reasonably talented. Personally, I find him an engaging child."

Davos turned a page, and said, without looking up, "Sansa loved you first did she not?", and all Snow could do was look away in shame. But Davos continued anyway, “And yet you turned her love away in favor of another, and then when you finally discovered what kind of person Daenerys Targaryen was you realized you loved Sansa in return, only to find out her heart now belonged to Dickon Tarly. And so now here you stand despising a child because of some misplaced hatred for the boy's father, for stealing the woman you loved, even though the reason she was never yours was your own fault”. 

A whirl of color, and now everything darkened, and now Ned stood in the headmaster's office yet again. It was night time, and Davos sagged sideways in the throne like chair behind the desk, apparently semiconscious. His right hand dangled over the side, blackened and burned. Snow was muttering incantations, pointing his wand at the wrist of the hand, while with his left hand he tipped a goblet full of thick golden potion down Davos's throat. After a moment or two, Davos's eyelids fluttered and opened.

"Why," said Snow, without preamble, "why did you put on that ring? It carries a curse, surely you realized that. Why even touch it?"

Aerys Targaryen's ring lay on the desk before Davos. It was cracked; the sword of Gryffindor lay beside it.

Davos grimaced.

"I...was a fool. Sorely tempted..."

"Tempted by what?"

Davos did not answer.

"It is a miracle you managed to return here!" Snow sounded furious. "That ring carried a curse of extraordinary power, to contain it is all we can hope for; I have trapped the curse in one hand for the time being"

Davos raised his blackened, useless hand, and examined it with the expression of one being shown an interesting curio.

"You have done very well, Jon. How long do you think I have?"

Davos's tone was conversational; he might have been asking for a weather forecast. Snow hesitated, and then said, "I cannot tell. Maybe a year. There is no halting such a spell forever. It will spread eventually, it is the sort of curse that strengthens over time."

Davos smiled. The news that he had less than a year to live seemed a matter of little or no concern to him.

"I am fortunate, extremely fortunate, that I have you, Jon."

"If you had only summoned me a little earlier, I might have been able to do more, buy you more time!" said Snow furiously. He looked down at the broken ring and the sword. "Did you think that breaking the ring would break the curse?"

"Something like that...I was delirious, no doubt..." said Davos. With an effort he straightened himself in his chair. "Well, really, this makes matters much more straightforward."

Snow looked utterly perplexed. Davos smiled.

"I refer to the plan the Night King is revolving around me. His plan to have the poor Lannister boy murder me."

Snow sat down in the chair Ned had so often occupied, across the desk from Davos. Ned could tell that he wanted to say more on the subject of Davos's cursed hand, but the other held it up in polite refusal to discuss the matter further. Scowling, Snow said, "The Night King does not expect Joffrey to succeed. This is merely punishment for Jaime's recent failures. Slow torture for Joffrey's parents, while they watch him fail and pay the price."

"In short, the boy has had a death sentence pronounced upon him as surely as I have," said Davos. "Now, I should have thought the natural successor to the job, once Joffrey fails, is yourself?"

There was a short pause.

"That, I think, is the Night King’s plan."

"The Night King foresees a moment in the near future when he will not need a spy at Hogwarts?"

"He believes the school will soon be in his grasp, yes."

"And if it does fall into his grasp," said Davos, almost, it seemed, as an aside, "I have your word that you will do all in your power to protect the students at Hogwarts?"

Snow gave a stiff nod.

"Good. Now then. Your first priority will be to discover what Joffrey is up to. A frightened teenage boy is a danger to others as well as to himself."

"I am concerned less for myself than for accidental victims of whatever schemes might occur to the boy. Ultimately, of course, there is only one thing to be done if we are to save him from the Night King's wrath."

Snow raised his eyebrows and his tone was sardonic as he asked, "Are you intending to let him kill you?"

"Certainly not. You must be the one to kill me Jon."

There was a long silence, broken only by an odd clicking noise. Ghost the phoenix was gnawing a bit of cuttlebone.

"Would you like me to do it now?" asked Snow, his voice heavy with irony. "Or would you like a few moments to compose an epitaph?"

"Oh, not quite yet," said Davos, smiling. "I daresay the moment will present itself in due course. Given what has happened tonight," he indicated his withered hand, "we can be sure that it will happen within a year."

"You alone know whether it will harm your soul to help an old man avoid pain and humiliation," said Davos. "I ask this one great favor of you, Jon, because death is coming for me as surely as the Dornish Sand Snakes will finish bottom of this year's league. I confess I should prefer a quick, painless exit.

His tone was light, but his eyes pierced Snow as they had frequently pierced Ned, as though the soul they discussed was visible to him. At last Snow gave another curt nod.

Davos seemed satisfied.

"Thank you, Jon..."

The office disappeared, and now Snow and Davos were strolling together in the deserted castle grounds by twilight.

"What are you doing with Tarly, all these evenings you are closeted together?" Snow asked abruptly.

Davos looked weary.

"Why? You aren't trying to give him more detentions, Jon? The boy will soon have spent more time in detention than out."

"He is his father over again"

"In looks, perhaps, but his deepest nature is much more like his mother's. I spend time with Ned because I have things to discuss with him, information I must give him before it is too late."

"Information," repeated Snow. "You trust him...you do not trust me."

"It is not a question of trust. I have, as we both know, limited time. It is essential that I give the boy enough information for him to do what he needs to do."

"And why may I not have the same information?"

"I prefer not to put all of my secrets in one basket, particularly not a basket that spends so much time dangling on the arm of the Night King."

"Which I do on your orders!"

"And you do it extremely well. Do not think that I underestimate the constant danger in which you place yourself, Jon. To give the Night King what appears to be valuable information while withholding the essentials is a job I would entrust to nobody but you."

"Yet you confide much more in a boy who is incapable of Occlumency, whose magic is mediocre, and who has a direct connection into the Night King's mind!"

"The Night King fears that connection," said Davos. "Not so long ago he had one small taste of what truly sharing Ned's mind means to him. It was pain such as he has never experienced. He will not try to possess Ned again, I am sure of it. Not in that way."

"I don't understand."

"The Night King's soul, maimed as it is, cannot bear close contact with a soul like Ned's. Like a tongue on frozen steel, like flesh in flame"

"Souls? We were talking of minds!"

"In the case of Ned and the Night King, to speak of one is to speak of the other."

Davos glanced around to make sure that they were alone. They were close by the Forbidden Forest now, but there was no sign of anyone near them.

"After you have killed me, Jon"

"You refuse to tell me everything, yet you expect that small service of me!" snarled Snow, and real anger flared in the long face now. "You take a great deal for granted, Davos! Perhaps I have changed my mind!"

"You gave me your word, Jon. And while we are talking about services you owe me, I thought you agreed to keep a close eye on our young Slytherin friend?"

Snow looked angry, mutinous. Davos sighed.

"Come to my office tonight, Jon, at eleven, and you shall not complain that I have no confidence in you..."

They were back in Davos's office, the windows dark, and Ghost sat silent as Snow sat quite still, as Davos walked around him, talking.

"Ned must not know, not until the last moment, not until it is necessary, otherwise how could he have the strength to do what must be done?"

"But what must he do?"

"That is between Ned and me. Now listen closely, Jon. There will come a time after my death… do not argue, do not interrupt! There will come a time when the Night King will seem to fear for the life of his ice spider."

"For Nagini?" Snow looked astonished.

"Precisely. If there comes a time when the Night King stops sending that ice spider forth to do his bidding, but keeps it safe beside him under magical protection, then, I think, it will be safe to tell Ned."

"Tell him what?"

Davos took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

"On the night the Night King tried to kill Ned, when Sansa cast her own life between them as a shield, the Killing Curse rebounded upon the Night King, and a fragment of the Night King's soul was blasted apart from the whole, and latched itself onto the only living thing it could find, Ned himself. A part of the Night King lives inside Ned, and it is that which gives him the power of speech with spiders, and a connection with the Night King's mind that he has never understood. And while that fragment of soul, unmissed by the Night King, remains attached to and protected by Ned, the Night King cannot die."

Ned seemed to be watching the two men from one end of a long tunnel, they were so far away from him, their voices echoing strangely in his ears.

"So when the time comes...the boy must die?" asked Snow quite calmly.

"Yes… yes… he must die."

Another long silence. Then Snow said, "I thought...all those years...that we were protecting him for her. For Sansa."

"We have protected him because it has been essential to teach him, to raise him, to let him try his strength," said Davos, his eyes still tight shut. "Meanwhile, the connection between them grows ever stronger, a parasitic growth. Sometimes I have thought he suspects it himself. If I know him, he will have arranged matters so that when he does set out to meet his death, it will truly mean the end of the Night King."

Davos opened his eyes. Snow looked horrified.

"You’ve kept him alive so that he can die at the proper moment. You’ve been raising him like a pig for slaughter!"

"Don’t tell me now that you’ve grown to care for the boy?" said Davos seriously. 

"For him?" shouted Snow. "Expecto Patronum!"

From the tip of his wand burst the silver wolf. She landed on the office floor, bounded once across the office, and soared out of the window. Davos watched her fly away, and as her silvery glow faded he turned back to Snow, and his eyes were full of tears.

"Sansa, after all this time?"

"Always," said Snow. 

“So when the time comes, the boy must die?”

"Yes… yes… he must die and the Night King himself must do it. That is essential." said Davos.

    Ned rose up out of the Pensieve, and moments later he lay on the carpeted floor in exactly the same rooms.

* * *

 

   Finally, the truth. Lying with his face pressed into the dusty carpet of the office where he had once thought he was learning the secrets of victory, Ned understood at last that he was not supposed to survive. His job was to walk calmly into death's welcoming arms. Along the way, he was to dispose of the Night King's remaining links to life, so that when at last he flung himself across the Night King's path, and did not raise a wand to defend himself, the end would be clean, and the job that ought to have been done in Godric's Hollow would be finished. Neither would live, neither could survive.

**Author's Note:**

> First off let me start by saying... FUCK YOU SEASON 7 JON SNOW, SUCK MY IMAGINARY DICK! Anyway I feel bad that I had to make Sansa = Lily Potter in order to do this, because honestly my baby Sansa Stark didn't deserve to die! Lol continuing on I just wanna say that no Gryffindor people are not evil (I myself am a Gryffindor... I wanted to be a Ravenclaw but Pottermore said I was Gryffindor so whatever, I gotta represent my house yo). It didn't feel right making Jon a Slytherin so even though it wasn't mentioned, I made the reason Jon was "evil" was because of influence from Danielle (I didn't mention it but she was a Slytherin... duh... no offensive to you good Slytherin people out there though) and if you can't except that then fuck you because anyone who really knows me knows that I have fucking hated Danielle Targaryen since the beginning so yeah go suck my imaginary dick too. Also the same goes for Jaime who was influenced by Cersei (obviously she's a Slytherin), I didn't wanna make Jaime evil but I was all like who in Game of Thrones is a huge dick but still cares about there son who's a little cunt... I came up empty lol so I chose Jaime. Okay so lastly to end this I'm just gonna let all my beautiful people who read my other fic (The Beginning & End of Everything) know that no I have not abandoned that story, I've just been busy with dumbass school (literally these bitches are dicks giving me all this boujee ass homework/projects) and I chose to write this really quick because it was stuck in my head and I knew it wouldn't take that long, so don't worry my children I'll probably update that story in a few days when I find the time ;)
> 
> Come follow me on social media my children! Most of my accounts are Marvel based (except my Tumblr lol because that's obviously all Jonsa) but I post the occasional Game of Thrones post and I'm totally willing to talk about any fandom on whatever social media platform you choose! Although, for the best results of me replying use Tumblr and Insta because tbh I mostly just have Twitter for show lol.  
> Tumblr = @Ludholtzjj  
> Instagram = @Ludholtzjj  
> Twitter = @Ludholtzjj


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